getting some answers

Three weeks after my miscarriage, I went in for recurrent loss testing. Some women's OBs have them wait for three miscarriages before doing testing, but my OB was adamant that we go ahead. They drew eleven vials of blood which left me lightheaded with a sore arm. They said it'd take 10-14 days to hear the results.

I got a call this morning from my OB's nurse. I have one copy of the gene that causes Factor V Leiden, a disorder that causes blood clots.

This is what I know so far:

FVL may have caused my two miscarriages. It's a strong possibilities; however, we didn't test baby #2 and #3, so we have no clear idea of what causes their deaths. I only have one copy of the gene versus getting it from both parents, but the risk is still high for complications in pregnancy if not treated properly.

FVL may have caused my pre-eclampsia. While I did carry G to full term without problems, I developed pre-eclampsia at 38 weeks and had to be quickly induced.

Since I only have one copy of the gene, only one of my parents is a carrier. We're guessing my mom at this point, since it's less common in Hispanics. However, we won't know until they get tested themselves.

FVL is treatable with blood thinners such as baby aspirin and daily Lovenox shots while you're pregnant. It's scary because blood clots can happen at any time during the pregnancy, so the baby isn't safe until you finally deliver. This is what scares me the most, even more so than the fact that this has life-long consequences for me.

FVL can cause blood clots which break off and travel to the heart or lungs. I'll have to learn how to handle this long-term, and I'm sure it involves lots of water and exercise throughout my life.

I'm glad that we went through all of this testing so we could get some answers. And I'm so so happy that there's treatment for FVL. However, I'm sad when thinking about the babies we lost. If I'd known earlier, I could have saved them.

I find it appropriate that my appointment with the specialist will be on August 15th. We'll learn how to save our future babies on the due date of baby #2, which I lost at 14 weeks.

this is why I can't watch Disney movies right now

This afternoon, we put on Finding Nemo for G to watch as he's fighting off this week's sickness. The poor kid's toes are still peeling from the remnants of hand, foot, mouth disease and now he's been running a fever for three days. G formed a rash on his neck just before the fever started, and he's showing signs of a sore throat, so I hope it's just a cold. If the fever hasn't gone away by middle of the week, I guess we'll have to take him in. Boy, he'll love that torture. Especially because they'll probably shove a strep test down his throat.

I stepped out of the room during the beginning of the movie. I couldn't stand watching Marlin lose both his wife (mate? partner? girl?) and all of his children except one. Because Nemo lost his mother and siblings, he'll always be an only child. Marlin suffers from post traumatic anxiety and can't let Nemo out of his sight without freaking out that his son will get hurt.

Sound familiar? I saw a lot of myself in Marlin. After my first miscarriage, I went through a period of a couple of months when I thought something might happen to G at any moment. I would wake up and think he had died in this sleep. I couldn't spend more than ten minutes at a park because I would have images of him falling and getting hurt flash through my mind. I would see him fall down the stairs or break a leg while trying to go down a slide.

It didn't help that he had already gotten hurt going down a slide (with me). It also didn't help that we had a trip to the emergency room less than 24 hours before we found out that baby #2 had died because G had busted his eyelid open on the coffee table. Being a toddler, he was a ticking time bomb for bruises, cuts, and trips to the ER. I couldn't take it.

Marlin in Finding Nemo can't bear to see his only son go off on his own. He can't let him play like the other kids because his son was born with a deformed fin and also because Marlin himself is always afraid Nemo will get hurt. Only once he sees how strong and resilient Nemo actually is does he finally begin to relax. Once Marlin realizes his son isn't going to randomly die on him, he can put his family's tragic deaths behind him and move on.

Almost exactly two months after we found out about my first miscarriage, we were in Alabama visiting my parents. We went to a park and G wanted to go down a slide. My heart was pounding but I let him do it by himself. Not only is it so much safer for him to go down the slide by himself to begin with - I found myself relaxing the more he did it without getting injured. Those knots inside of me loosened and began to let go.

We went to more and more parks after that, and I encouraged him to go down slides. The more slides he went down, loving every moment, the more I relaxed. A little over a month after this moment, I began to even stay on the ground while he explored by himself, only helping when he asked or walked down stairs without a rail. And it felt awesome.

Then, of course, miscarriage #2 happened.

I know it's only been a week since the actual miscarriage started, though we found out two and a half weeks ago. My hormones took a huge dip a couple of days ago, which took a toil on me emotionally, but otherwise I've managed to stay upbeat. My post postpartum anxiety that happened after baby #2 hasn't happened after baby #3. At least, not yet. I know more about what to look for and avoid, and I'm trying my best to stay hopeful.

However, I do wonder if my kiddo will stay an only child like Nemo. Will I have to tell him, when he's older, about all those babies I tried to have and lost? About the siblings that might have been? I know lots of only children who were perfectly happy growing up that way, so I try not to assume that he'll be lonely. But my child won't have a ton of cousins running around with him like I did. He'll always be the oldest by at least a couple of years, and I yearn to give him a life-long playmate to share his ups and downs.

Maybe those losses will be something I can share with my two kids when they ask about all of those extra ultrasound photos we kept or the picture of the lion with angel wings on the wall. Eventually, we'll have to say enough is enough and give up on trying to have a second baby. But not right now.

three days post miscarriage

It's difficult for me to peg down the exact day of my miscarriage. We knew the baby wasn't viable a week and a half before I started bleeding. While I started miscarrying Sunday evening, I was still passing tissue as late as Tuesday morning even though most of the cramps had ceased.

Anyway, so I'm about three or four days post the majority of the miscarriage. Yesterday was the first day that the bleeding seemed to be slowing, and I've only passed tiny clots in two days. Now, it's mostly like a period. I'm still very tired throughout the day, but I'm sure I'll be that way until my iron levels recover.

I can tell my hormone levels are dropping. My boobs are smaller and no longer as sore, and my skin is breaking out like crazy. I'm no longer nauseous nor as hungry as I was only days ago. I'm also breathing easier - I get that pregnancy symptom where your nasal passages swell and your allergies worsen; this is usually one of my first signs of pregnancy and the first signal that my hormones have shifted.

Emotionally, I'm actually pretty good. I'm not crying all of the time, though I'm finding it difficult to get up and do anything. I'm giving myself a few more days and then it's time to get back to normal. I want to get back to running again and get my body back in shape before we try to conceive baby #4. I'm trying to be more sociable, but right now it's a fight against the introverted side of me that just wants to hide and stay bottled up for a while longer.

I've got G to focus on now, too. He has his big EI testing today, and we're crossing our fingers that he qualifies for speech therapy. If he doesn't, we have to wait six months before he can be tested again. That will give him six months to fall behind even more, and I will not be happy!

the story of miscarriage

This post has graphic descriptions of miscarriage. Read at your own discretion. ~Alicia


I started bleeding for my second miscarriage on the four month anniversary of the D&C for my first. I don't know what to say about my body except that it has timing.

I knew it was likely coming. On Saturday, I started spotting brown discharge. By the end of that day, we had decided to call my OB's office and cancel the D&C scheduled for early Monday morning in the hopes that I would miscarry on my own. Late Sunday morning, I wiped and saw small red streaks mixed in with the brown. My cramps were becoming more like cramps than a persistent aching.

By the end of that day, I asked my mom to come up. I hated asking her to drive the two and a half hours to Nashville from Alabama, especially because she had already been traveling that weekend. But when you need your mama, you do your best to kick your pride and guilt to the curb.

My mama arrived at 6:40pm. At 7:00pm, as I hugged G goodnight, I felt a sudden wetness between my legs. I rushed upstairs to the bathroom and sat on the toilet in time to pass a large clot and a few gushes of bright red blood. The miscarriage was definitely happening.

I called my OB's office and spoke with the on-call doc from the group (who happened to be the one who had delivered G!). I told her what was happening and just asked her to give my OB a message for in the morning. My OB had asked me to call before taking my Cytotec, a drug to induce cervical contractions that she wanted me to talk as soon as I had bright red bleeding. The on-call doc said my OB's nurse would give me a call in the morning to check on me, but I shouldn't hesitate to call back if I had any problems. I know I've said it before, but I love my doctor's office.

By the time I hung up the phone, the contractions and cramps were coming stronger. I put three Cytotec pills in my cheeks; I would take another three after those dissolved. My mom, Dave, and I all gathered upstairs to play a game and distract me. I sat with my heating pad, alternating it between my tummy and my lower back. Every 15 to 30 minutes, I would feel a little wetness and taking off quickly to the bathroom. Usually, I would pass a mass of clots and blood on the toilet before joining the others back in the room.

By 9:30 or 10pm, the contractions/cramps were strong. I was on hydromorphone and strong Ibuprofen pills, and I was still in a lot of pain. After a while, I couldn't concentrate on playing games anymore. My mom and the hubs distracted me by sitting with me on the floor and chatting for the next few hours. I spent most of it rocking back and forth, a motion that really helped, and heading to the bathroom to pass some more clots. Nothing during this time was as big as that first clot.

Around 11:30, I noticed that my cramps had lessened. I was worried about this because I didn't feel like I had passed anything that looked like the gestational sac - it all had looked like clotting. Mom and Dave argued about who would stay up with me; finally, my mom won and Dave headed off to try to sleep for a few hours.

At midnight, I decided that the cramps weren't strong enough to keep me from sleep. I sent Mom off to bed and crawled in next to a passed out hubs. I laid there until 1:30am, dozing, waking with cramps, dozing again, until the cramps/contractions became bad enough to send me to the bathroom again. I passed my biggest clot then, though it still didn't look like anything but blood.

I stayed up by myself until about 2:30 before deciding to try to sleep again.

My mom and the hubs got up when G did, around 6:30, and I stayed in bed a little later, closer to 7:30. At 7:55am, my OB's nurse called to check on me. I told her what happened overnight and answered her questions. They decided to have me come in for an ultrasound to see if I'd passed the fetal tissue. We went in for one at 10am, and the ultrasound technician found only blood clots. It looked as though I had passed all of the sac already. This was great news, and we were all very relieved.

This morning, I did end up passing a large piece of gray tissue that had a large clot attached to it. I'm guessing it was hidden on the ultrasound or something because it was definitely different than only blood. Today's bleeding, after that tissue, has been much more period like with almost no clotting, so I hope that means I'm in the clear now.

All in all, the experience was more positive than my D&C. I hated having to go to the hospital and spent a lot of time there by myself, whereas miscarrying naturally at home meant I could be surrounded by those who love me. I'm so happy my mom made it in time to help me out. The worst of the miscarriage only lasted a few hours, but having her as a distraction made things so much easier. It was also wonderful that the miscarriage happened right after G went to bed, so everyone was able to focus on helping me through it.

I did get emotional at the beginning, but overall, it was less traumatic than my D&C. I'll definitely choose a natural miscarriage over a D&C if I have to in the future, at least for early miscarriages. This miscarriage has sucked so hard because it was my second in a row, but this baby likely never even had a heartbeat. The fetus never looked very baby-like on the screen, likely from severe defects. And maybe after losing baby #2, I'm too jaded to feel like I could be pregnant with my take-home baby.

I'm still mourning baby #2, the one we lost at 14 weeks, so comprehending the loss of a second baby has been very difficult for me. How can someone hold that much grief? How can you mourn two babies when you never got past mourning one? When I think about baby #2, my heart clenches tight. When I think about baby #3, I just feel numb. Maybe I can't deal with even more loss so I'm shutting myself down to keep from feeling the pain. I can talk about this miscarriage easily with my husband and my mom, but when I try to talk to anyone else about it, my throat tightens, my jaw clenches, and tears rush into my eyes.

Does it get easier, the more losses you have? Or do you just utilize your well-worn coping skills?

We get to start trying for baby #4 after I have a regular period. I don't know if I'll be conceiving my second living child or my third angel baby.

goodbye, baby

Because of hand, foot, mouth going around in my house (but I'm immune, so that's great), and because of our last miscarriage at 14 weeks, my OB decided to bump up my first ultrasound to yesterday.

We left G with my mother-in-law while he napped, and both of us headed to my OB's office.

As I was checking in, my OB came over and gave me a big hug, happy to see us again. She crossed her fingers, hoping for good vibes before we went into the ultrasound.

A part of me thought, hey, I already had a miscarriage. A horrific later one. I paid my dues, right?

A part of me thought, it can't happen again, right?

A part of me knew it immediately, as soon as the technician slid the ultrasound wand inside. She measured the ovary that didn't ovulate. She went to the other side, sliding over the baby to my other ovary, a large black circle. I saw the baby for a brief moment. I took a deep breath, let it out. Took another one, let it out. Waited.

As soon as I saw the baby, I knew. There was no movement, no tiny heart pumping away. The technician measured and measured - I saw the baby measured right on target. She checked blood flow and saw none in the baby. She went into menus and out of menus, checked again and again, zoomed in and out. That terrible, awful screen came up, the one that measures the heartbeat, a line going across the screen left to right with flat lines.

Nothing.

So we've lost this baby. Honestly, I just feel numb inside. I don't think an early miscarriage would hurt as much as our 14 week one if it wasn't for the fact that it's now two in a row. I don't feel safe at all anymore. My OB wants to do testing to see if there's some condition that's causing these losses. I keep looking at G and thinking, were you just a fluke? A one-time miracle?

A part of me just wants to stop trying. But the more I'm denied my second take-home baby, the more I want it.

trudging right along over here

6 weeks today, baby!

Okay, I'm not gonna do those pregnancy lists every week, because gosh, that would get boring, yes? I swear I look 12 weeks pregnant in the above photo but most of that is just gut and bloat.

We're pretty sure that G does indeed have hand, foot, mouth disease. He's got some bumps on his feet and hands. That would explain his nasty attitude on Monday and that high fever, plus his complete lack of appetite for a few days. He ate lunch today for the first time since Sunday! He's doing much better today, by the way. No fever, good appetite. Pretty much back to normal except the bumps on his feet and hands. It does mean we had to postpone his birthday party to next Saturday. Insert sad face.

I contacted my OB since everything I read said you should if you come into contact with someone with HFM. They immediately asked me to come in to test my beta levels and to test me for HFM immunity. Of course, I immediately started freaking out. What if my beta levels weren't high enough? What if I get HFM from G?

I heard back from my doc's nurse this afternoon and my beta levels were at 5500! Which is perfect for 5 weeks 6 days. Since they're up, my doctor wants to bump up my first ultrasound to next Wednesday instead of the 19th like it was originally scheduled. I'm not really sure if this bump is due to the HFM scare or my previous miscarriage, but hey, I get to see the little bean two weeks earlier, so why not?

I know seeing the little one's heart beating fast on that ultrasound will only settle my fears a little. We did make it to 14 weeks with baby #2 after all. But I can't wait to see that tiny muscle pumping away, a stark contrast to the motionless body we last saw in February.

By the way, G completely face-planted into a kitchen cabinet this evening. He has a huge bruise on his cheek, and a bit of a bruise next to his eye and on his forehead. Poor kid can't catch a break. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow for show 'n' tell. I swear toddlers are the toughest little buggers ever. He cried for a few minutes but it never bothered him again. If I slammed into a cabinet, I'd probably be bitching about it for days afterward.

5 weeks!

• How far along?  5 weeks

• Total weight gain:  I'm not stepping on the scale for at least another couple of weeks!

• Maternity clothes?  Nope, not even a bella band yet.

• Stretch marks? No new ones.

• Sleep:  I'm having some trouble from 4-6am, but I'm okay besides that. Mostly, it's because I'm getting stuffy in the middle of the night. And I'm having crazy dreams, too.

• Best moment this week:  Finally finding a shirt I might wear to G's second birthday party next Saturday (!!!).

• Miss Anything? Coffee. I'm really trying to cut back. Instead of two cups a day, I'm down to one half of a cup.

• Movement: Nah. Kiddo doesn't even have feet yet.

• Food cravings: Sweets, a little. That's about it. I'm not even hungrier than usual most days - I just need an extra snack.

• Food aversions: Nothing really, but smells I normally don't like anyway are stronger.

• Gender: Stay tuned!

• Labor Signs: Um, no.

• Symptoms: Bloating, weird dreams, aching in the pelvis, and the girls are larger and sore.

• Belly Button in or out? In.

• Wedding rings on or off? On.

• Looking forward to: Seeing the baby on ultrasound for the first time. 3 1/2 more weeks!

my mama

The pic below of my mom and G was taken a few days after my D&C. She came up to Nashville soon after we learned about the miscarriage to help us take care of G while I was in the hospital and recovering afterward. I haven't posted any of the photos taken that weekend because they remind me of the worst days of my life. But this one I just love.

My mom's birthday was yesterday. She's in Miami right now with my dad, visiting my dad's family (I'm so jealous). Anyway, I'm just having a bummed, missing my mom kind of day. I look forward to seeing her and my grandparents for G's second birthday party in a week and a half (!!!).

My mum was seriously the best mom ever. She taught me most of what I know about being a good parent. About always showing affection. About always having the time to play (and she still does this!). About always being able to listen even if she disagrees. About being slow to anger and quick to forgive.

Even though we live in two different states, she's always ready to come up if I need her. When I called her to say we were headed to the hospital because my OB suspected I had pre-eclampsia with G, she packed her bag and started driving before I was even in a labor room. When I called her bawling on the phone, driving home after that awful doctor's appointment where we heard no heartbeat with baby #2, she was ready to drive up right then if I asked.

We talk on the phone at least every other day, even if we don't really have anything to talk about. She lets me vent and whine, laugh and cry, without hardly any judgement. She's got my back but yet she'll put me in my place.

It's no wonder G loves her as much as I do. She's an easy gal to love. :)

...

Okay, I'm getting off the computer now before I cry. Gah, I'm so hormonal! I'm 5 weeks tomorrow and I think it's really started to show!

nothin' but baby bloat

Yo, in an effort to better document this pregnancy than I did the last, here's a pic of me four weeks pregnant last week. Crazy, right? There's nothing there but leftover Grayson weight and major bloating, but it's cute all the same.

Also I'm sporting a short new haircut. I haven't had my hair this short since undergrad (boy, was that a mistake), but I'm liking it so far.

This first week of pregnancy has been grand. Mostly just tired all day long, bloated, and a bit achy. I still can't believe it's real and baby #3 is here. I'm not looking forward to the nausea kicking in, but it'll be another reminder that I am pregnant and I can truly begin to heal from my miscarriage.

I can't wait to see my OB next month - she's going to be so excited!

only 36 weeks to go!

Let it be known that I can't keep my own secrets. I have no trouble with other people's, but when it comes to anything going on in my own life that maybe I should wait to tell... I just can't.

The hubs and I were sitting in bed yesterday, and he goes, "You know, if you want to blog about it, you can."

"Whaa?" was my general response.

"I know you want to blog about it since you're doing that blog everyday thing. It's killing you that you can't tell everyone."

"So what? You want to announce it on Facebook?"

He did that noncommittal face. "Sure."

Sigh. Men.

So, here we go.

We're PREGNANT!

We found out the day before the three month anniversary of my miscarriage. It's a bittersweet thing to be celebrating one life while mourning another. I'm fully aware that baby #3 would never have existed without baby #2's death. I'm so thankful that we got pregnant again quickly. And that there are no problems so far. And that I'm not entirely freaked out about being pregnant again. Should I be more freaked out and worried about miscarriage? I don't know.

But hey, as they say on Dinotopia: "breathe deep, seek peace." Right?

Oh gosh, I'm pregnant!